


New Beginnings

by Unforgotten



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 13:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8752828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten
Summary: In the end, it's Erik's children who bring him back to Charles' house.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onceandfuturemoose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceandfuturemoose/gifts).



Wanda ran through the apartment like a whirlwind, slamming the front door behind her and rushing into her bedroom in tears.

Erik had learned years ago that he needed to give her a minute when she was upset—that to demand she tell him what was wrong immediately would only result in the both of them screaming at each other, and then by her refusing to tell him anything—and so, instead of following her, he sat down in the living room. He took the change from his pocket and floated a quarter in front of himself, tore it into four pieces, eight, twelve, sixteen, until its parts were so small he could barely feel them with his gift. Then he knitted the pieces back together, until the quarter was identical to its fellows once more.

Only then did he go over to her door and lightly rap on it.

"You all right in there?"

"I'm fine! Leave me alone!"

Was that a real _leave me alone_ or an 'I really want you to keep pestering me so I can at least put up a fight about it before I spill my guts' _leave me alone_? He wasn't sure, though it was more likely to be the first one than the second, these days. Still, not one to err on the side of inaction any longer than he had to, he was about to knock again when Pietro breezed through the front door. He was unmistakable, as usual: where Wanda had come in like a storm, Pietro came in so quietly that you'd never know he'd been through at all unless you knew how to listen for the slight displacement of air settling into place after he'd passed through. Erik had learned that particular skill very early.

Erik found Pietro in his bedroom, doing God knows what—there was never any telling what he'd been up to unless he was actually asleep; by the time Erik opened the door, he had a history book in front of his face like a smartass, as if Erik didn't know damned well he never studied.

"Save it," Erik said. "What's wrong with your sister?"

"Some girls were giving her hassle. Same old, same old. Don't worry, they already regret it."

For several years after he'd found them, Erik had taught his children at home. Unfortunately, he hadn't been much of a teacher, nor anywhere near enough company for two children who were inherently much more sociable than himself. When they'd finally been in one town for more than a few months, he'd enrolled them in the local school. They'd loved it, for about six months—and then they'd manifested. The mutations Erik had taken great delight in seeing had drawn the bullies every week since. It wasn't too bad for Pietro, who couldn't be caught unless he wished it; it was bad and getting worse for Wanda, whose mutation was unpredictable and near-random.

Once, Erik would have had a single, decisive answer to stop it—but he'd lived as a father long enough by now to have a good idea of how the twins would react if he were to murder their tormenters slowly. He didn't want to horrify his children. He didn't want them to fear him.

He didn't want them to fear going to school, either.

He went back to Wanda's room and knocked on her door again. "Can we talk?"

"There's no point," Wanda said.

***

There really wasn't much point in talking about it, though Erik forced the conversation anyway. The answer was the same old thing: she didn't want to be home-schooled, didn't want him to talk to the other kids' parents, didn't want him to talk to her teachers or the principal. She was completely miserable, but she didn't want him to do anything.

Eventually, though, a solution came to Erik, so perfect he couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before.

First, he made a phone call, just to be certain. Charles could have changed his mind about opening a school for mutants, as he'd once changed his mind about Erik, never mind how dreamy-eyed he'd seemed about both when they'd been nestled in bed together in hotel rooms across the country.

Thankfully, the person Erik got on the phone didn't seem to be anyone he'd known, and confirmed that there were enoung spots left for two more.

That very evening, he sat Wanda and Pietro down at the kitchen table and said, "What would you think about moving again?"

That the revolt he'd braced for didn't come said something about how bad it had been for them lately—they'd hated moving so often when he'd first gotten them, barely having the chance to get used to one place before it was time to leave for another new place; they'd had enough of that during the years they'd spent in and out of various foster homes. 

***

Erik had always conducted his life so that he could pack up and be gone from anywhere within ten minutes. Though they'd lived in this apartment for three years now, that habit hadn't changed.

The twins, however, took a few more days to be ready—but it wasn't long before they were off. Though they hadn't been on a road trip since they'd moved into this apartment complex, they soon settled into old habits: Wanda drowsing in the backseat as much as she could, leaning against the pillow between herself and the door, only ever seeming to wake up for long enough to announce that she had to pee, or to tell Pietro to shut up; Pietro asking a thousand questions about everything they passed in the cities, and whining about how boring nature was whenever they were in the country. (Only now, there was also whining about how sloooooooooooowly they were driving, until Erik wanted to tell him he was welcome to beat them there, if he liked. He only kept his mouth shut because Pietro _would_.)

After several days of hell, they arrived at a place Erik had never expected to see again. The mansion was even more offensively huge than he'd remembered, but more important was this: there were children playing on the lawn, and even from just inside the gate, Erik could tell they were mutants. That about five of them were floating in the air, some with wings and some without, was a dead giveaway.

He didn't bother asking anyone where he should go to enroll new students; by the time he'd driven all the way up to the front door, he'd had time to feel for all the metal in the house. He knew exactly where to go.

The wheelchair turned out to be located in a classroom, where its owner was teaching a group of ten or so teenagers just a few years older than the twins.

When Erik opened the door, Charles glanced at him. Then he paled. Then he said, " _Erik_?"

"We need to talk."

"...Class is dismissed," Charles said.

The students gathered their things and filed out, some of them glancing curiously at Erik and the twins, others gabbing to each other about what they were going to do with twenty unexpected free minutes.

When the last of them had gone, Erik closed the door so that the four of them might have some privacy.

"Who have you brought with you?" Charles asked, and then, "—You called the other day. You're Mr. Eisenhardt."

"I am."

"Well. It seems as if we have a lot of catching up to do." Charles smiled at Wanda, at Pietro. "But first, let's get the two of you settled in, yes? I'm certain you must have questions."

***

"I have quite a few questions," Charles said several hours later. He'd given the three of them the tour, set the twins up with rooms and textbooks and class schedules, then set them loose, saying he needed to talk about boring financial things with their father. (The twins, who had recently turned thirteen, had not been any more impressed than Erik at being patronized.) He and Charles had then gone into Charles' study, where Erik now felt as if he were under a microscope, his every decision over the last nine years up for judgment. "First of all—they are _your_ children? Please tell me you didn't abduct them from somewhere."

"Yes," Erik said.

After the way they'd left things, he'd expected Charles to have his way with Erik's mind, so it wasn't a surprise when Charles' eyes widened. "They're yours _and_ you abducted them. Splendid. That's—incredible. Erik, what were you thinking?"

That the state would never allow him to have them—that was what Erik had been thinking. A few months after Cuba, he'd decided to look up his former wife, Magda. He'd always thought he would, one day, if he outlived Shaw. He'd wanted, at least, to tell her he'd finally gotten him, even if she responded by slamming the door in his face. But instead of finding her in the trail that had let him to Washington D.C., all he'd found was an obituary, which included these words: _Survived by her two children._

They'd had no children together that he knew of, but the barest research had shown that her twins were of an age that they could easily have been Erik's. He'd found them at a foster home. One look at Wanda had told the whole story, and taken his breath away. She'd looked just like his mother. She'd looked just like his sister, Ruth. There had been no doubt in his mind, from that moment on. There had been no doubt, either, that he wanted them, though he'd never once thought of having children before then.

He actually had tried to adopt them, first—less because he thought it would work than because he wanted them to get to know him. He'd been allowed to spend some time with them before the people in charge had found some crack in that first alias and denied him. Unhappy in their group home, the twins come with him willingly enough when he'd come back for them. Once they were safe, he'd explained that he was their real father, proved it by telling them things about their mother that no one who hadn't lived with her could have known. After the way they'd left things, the way he'd left her, it had surprised him to learn that what little Magda had told them about him hadn't been bad.

The three of them had lived a life on the run, until Erik had managed to buy identities secure enough that he dared to stay in one place. It had been a hundred times harder than all the running he'd done on his own, and a thousand time more rewarding.

"I was thinking they wouldn't hand over two children to someone who wasn't even in this country legally," Erik said. "I was thinking that if they turned out to be mutants, too, then better myself than anyone else. I was thinking you would help me, not lecture me."

"I daresay I'm going to do both."

Erik was surprised to see that Charles' hands were trembling. He hadn't forgotten how they'd left things, but he hadn't thought of it clearly any time recently, either. He'd thought of their split in terms of whether or not Charles would take out his ire toward Erik on Erik's children; he'd thought of it as an obstacle, one he'd fight his way through if Charles made him. Now, the memory hit him, hard enough to take his breath away: How fiercely he'd loved Charles, once, and how abruptly they'd parted, so that no thought of what had happened between them on that beach felt quite real.

Charles must have still been in his mind, because his hands clenched into fists and then opened again, now still.

"But first, I'm going to pour myself a scotch. Would you like one?"

Erik's children had given him a new beginning, one he hadn't known he could seek until it was there, in front of him, where there had been nothing before that: The chance to be part of a family again, to build something good where there had been nothing but pain and anger for so many years.

It wasn't until Charles handed him his drink, holding onto it a few seconds longer than necessary, causing their fingers to brush against the others', and said, "Would you care for a game of chess? For old times' sake?" that Erik truly realized: For the first time since they'd parted, they were together in the same space, when he'd once thought he could never bear to be anywhere near Charles Xavier again. Who knew what other new beginnings there might be, now that that impossible thing was true?

"I'd like that," he said.


End file.
